Baltic Dry Index. 2117 -04 Brent Crude 71.02
Spot Gold 5214 Spot Silver 90.68
US 2 Year Yield 3.42 -0.03
US Federal Debt. 38.738 trillion
US GDP 31.190 trillion.
Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere. It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff.
Alan Greenspan
It’s the last trading day of the month. Normally a day to dress up the stock casinos for the all important, professional money manager performance bonuses.
But given what’s unfolding in the private credit, shadow banking sector, that’s a very risky strategy this month-end today.
Next month portends a likely collapse of
confidence in the private credit, multi hypothecated, all too often fraudulent
private credit sector.
Asia markets open mixed after Wall Street pullback
on Nvidia slump
Published Thu, Feb 26 2026 6:57 PM EST
Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed Friday,
after U.S. stocks declined overnight as Nvidia shares tumbled despite a
quarterly earnings beat.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slid 0.6%, while
the Topix traded flat. The benchmark Japanese index hit 59,000 for the first
time on Thursday before paring gains slightly.
South Korea’s Kospi declined 1.1%, while
the small-cap Kosdaq was down 0.35%.
Hong Kong Hang Seng index rose 0.68%,
while the CSI 300 slid 0.49%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was flat in
early trade.
Asia tech stocks slid in early trading. SK
Hynix, which is a key supplier of high-bandwidth memory to Nvidia, dipped over
2%. Samsung Electronics,
which has been a decades-old partner of Nvidia, was down 0.69%.
SoftBank Group, a major
investors in AI companies, declined over 3%.
Overnight in the U.S., the S&P 500 pulled back after
the latest results from tech titan Nvidia and software
giant Salesforce failed
to boost the broader market.
The broad market index fell 0.54% to end
at 6,908.86, while the Nasdaq
Composite declined 1.18% and closed at 22,878.38. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added
17.05 points, or 0.03%, to settle at 49,499.20.
Nvidia shares fell more than 5%, even
after the chip giant posted a fourth-quarter earnings and revenue beat. The
stock suffered its worst day since April. Other chip stocks such as Broadcom, Lam Research, Western Digital and Applied Materials also slid.
Asia
markets: Nikkei 225, Kospi, Nifty 50
More Banks See Exposure Amid Loose Underwriting
Fears
February 26, 2026 at 11:10 PM GMT
While some may disagree about the
threat private
credit poses to markets, a new crisis reared its head on Thursday. It seems
that Barclays and Atlas Partners—the structured-credit arm of Apollo
Global Management—are among firms that helped arrange more than $2.7 billion of
loans to a UK mortgage-finance company that’s unraveled amid allegations of
financial irregularities.
Market Financial Solutions collapsed into
a UK form of insolvency yesterday, with the judge overseeing the case citing
accusations of fraud and double-pledging of assets. Barclays and Atlas each
lent it hundreds of millions of dollars. Jefferies Financial Group and Wells
Fargo are also among those with exposure.
If this fact pattern sounds familiar, it’s
because it is (think
cockroaches). The unraveling of MFS is reanimating fears over
loose underwriting in credit markets. Last year, the bankruptcies of US auto
parts supplier First Brands Group and sub-prime auto
lender Tricolor Holdings shook Wall Street. JPMorgan Chief
Executive Officer Jamie Dimon warned this week that some of his rivals are
doing “dumb
things” to boost returns, reminding him of the years leading up to the 2008
financial crisis. —David
E. Rovella
More
Banks Exposed Amid Credit Fears: Evening Briefing Americas - Bloomberg
Private equity enters its ‘Darwinian’ era as
experts warn some funds face extinction
Published Fri, Feb 27 2026 12:22 AM EST
Falling returns, investment exit worries,
longer holding periods and tougher fundraising conditions are hobbling the
private equity industry, with experts warning that only the strongest will
survive.
According to a report by Bain & Co, private equity delivered low
payouts to investors for a fourth consecutive year, weighed down by roughly
32,000 unsold companies worth about $3.8 trillion.
It’s taking longer to sell these
businesses: about seven years on average now, compared with five to six years
between 2010 and 2021, the report released Monday said, adding that exit
volumes dropped by 2% last year.
“It’s a very bumpy road right now for PE
firms,” said Romain Bégramian, managing partner at GP Score, which evaluates
and verifies private equity firms’ value-creation capabilities. “Finally
the long needed Darwinian selection is taking place.”
Private equity firms returned only about
14% of the money they’re managing back to investors in 2025, lowest since the
2008-09 global financial crisis
The industry has been grappling with weak
exits and stubbornly low distributions to fund investors, known as limited
partners, mounting pressure on fund managers to prove if they can still create
value.
Fundraising has become increasingly
concentrated among established brands with smaller or emerging managers
struggling to secure commitments for new vehicles, even as they hold onto aging
portfolio companies bought near peak valuations during the low interest rate,
liquidity-fueled 2021–2022 easy-money boom, market watchers told CNBC.
“Based on the current environment, where
we are seeing many funds, big or small, struggle to raise capital, there will
be many managers who have raised their last fund; they just don’t know it yet,”
said Kyle Walters, senior analyst at private market data provider PitchBook.
“And those in the former camp will likely
wind down quietly, and that will be all you see or hear of it,” Walters added,
referring to underperforming managers.
Data from Bain showed that buyout
fundraising, or capital raised for funds that typically buy controlling stakes
using leverage, fell 16% in 2025 from a year earlier to $395 billion, while the
number of buyout funds closed — those that met the targeted fund corpus —
dropped 23%, marking their fourth straight annual decline.
The strain is not evenly distributed.
Large-cap buyouts and managers tend to be more insulated, Walters said. Many
run multiple strategies and manage huge pools of capital, which gives them a
cushion when dealmaking or exits slow down.
Global buyout deal value jumped 44% to
$904 billion, but just 13 megadeals above $10 billion accounted for about 30%
of that total, Bain report showed, with most concentrated in the U.S. Overall
deal count fell 6%.
“This pressure is more impactful on middle
market managers, especially emerging managers, who are trying to set themselves
apart from their peers,” said Walters.
Across the board, what is clear is that
the playbook of leverage and increasing valuation multiples is no
longer sufficient, industry watchers said.
“The current environment is truly testing
what managers can add operational value as opposed to relying on some type of
financial engineering to generate returns,” he added.
Walters was referring to fund managers’
ability to drive earnings through concrete changes within portfolio companies,
such as pricing discipline, working-capital improvements and management
upgrades rather than relying mainly on cheap debt to chase valuation multiples.
Continuation, consolidation, extinction
Some industry leaders expect
consolidation to accelerate as performance gaps widen and capital
becomes more concentrated among top-tier managers.
There being more PE funds than McDonald’s
outlets in the U.S. has been highlighted by experts, making a case for
consolidation in an industry that seems to have expanded too fast.
Bégramian, however, points to the limits
of consolidation as a neat solution.
“Not all PE firms can be bought by
BlackRock and Apollo, and they’re not in the market to buy everybody,” he said.
adding that there was not infinite appetite among mega platforms to scoop up
“every struggling general partner,” especially when what’s being sold is
essentially fee revenue tied to portfolios that may include hard-to-exit or
hard-to-value, so-called “gray” assets.
More
Private
equity funds face closure and 'extinction' in Darwinian era
In other news, more resource nationalism?
Zimbabwe bans exports of all raw materials
Originally planned for 2027, the mines
ministry announces an export freeze on raw minerals and lithium concentrate
with immediate effect.
Published 25 Februay at 15:24 pm
(GMT +1)
Zimbabwe has frozen exports of raw
minerals and lithium concentrate, the mines ministry said on
Wednesday, tightening control over materials key to clean‑energy technologies
and defence industries.
The ban takes immediate effect, covers
all raw minerals already in transit
and will remain in place until further notice, the ministry said.
“Government expects cooperation of the
mining industry on this measure which has been taken in the national interest,”
minister of mines Polite Kambamura said in a statement.
Securing access to rare earths and other
strategic minerals has become a global priority, given their role in
smartphones, green energy systems, military equipment and many other goods.
This has prompted many producing nations
to tighten controls and plug leaks in their supply chains.
Ensuring transparency
Zimbabwe “will be engaging the industry in
the near future on new expectations and way forward”, said Kambamura.
“Government remains committed to ensuring
transparency, in-country value addition and beneficiation, compliance and
accountability in the exportation of Zimbabwe’s mineral resources.”
The export ban on
lithium concentrates
had originally been scheduled to start in January 2027, a deadline the
government hoped would push mining companies to begin processing and refining
the mineral locally.
The southern African nation holds
the continent’s largest lithium reserves and ships much of its
production to China for further
processing into battery‑grade materials.
Mining is Zimbabwe’s second‑largest
contributor to the country’s GDP, accounting for 14.3% of output after
manufacturing, according to World Bank data.
On the same day, Zimbabwe pulled out of
negotiations with the United States on a new health deal intended to replace
the aid programme disbanded by President Donald Trump, the US embassy in Harare
said.
Zimbabwe bans
exports of all raw materials
Global Inflation/Stagflation/Recession
Watch.
Given
our Magic Money Tree central banksters and our spendthrift politicians,
inflation now needs an entire section of its own.
Gold to take centre stage at PDAC, with some
predicting prices will hit $10,000
After years in the 'wilderness,' gold bugs get
sweet vindication at the annual mining event amid bullion's historic run
By Gabriel
Friedman Published
Feb 26, 2026
John Ing has been bullish on bullion for more than
five decades, and he’s not about to change his tune as gold rips to
US$5,000 per ounce.
“I keep on telling everyone the best is yet to
come,” the chief executive of investment adviser Maison Placements Canada Inc.
in Toronto said. “Yeah, it looks like a bubble, but when you look at the supply
and demand, my sense is we haven’t seen anything yet.”
Gold in 2025 turned in its best annual performance
as an investment since 1979, rising 65 per cent to US$4,547 per ounce by
year-end. But it wasn’t done yet, as it kept smashing records to briefly hit
nearly US$5,600 per ounce before settling down about 10 per cent to around
US$5,000.
But one thing is abundantly clear as tens of
thousands of geologists and mining professionals from all over Canada and the
world converge in downtown Toronto this coming week for the Prospectors
& Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) conference:
after years of optimism about bullion, even as its price sat in the doldrums,
gold bugs have finally been vindicated as just about everyone else has now
bought into their beliefs.
Ing said gold’s sudden surge will likely be a motif
at this year’s PDAC, a convention he’s attended for decades, and the mood may
be more celebratory than in previous years.
----The point, Ing
said, is that gold bugs have suffered through some rough patches and some quiet
periods, but, ultimately, everyone who invests makes money over the long term.
By his account, gold’s current bull run, though
historic, would barely qualify as one if it ran out of steam now. Despite
bullion’s meteoric rise since early 2024, he described it as just the “third”
best gold run he’s witnessed in his career.
The first big boom took place in the 1970s, when
gold rose to US$850 per ounce from around US$35. A nearly two-decade lull
followed in which gold dipped back to US$250 per ounce. During the 2000s, gold
heated up again, peaking at US$1,900 per ounce in 2011, followed by a long
period of middling prices until more recently, when things went into overdrive.
“For a while, I and others were in the wilderness,”
Ing said. “We’ve always said gold is a hedge against uncertainty, against
inflation. It’s a barometer of investor uncertainty. For a while, I’ve been
writing that and now others have adopted it.”
He predicts gold will run even higher in 2026,
suggesting a 20 per cent rise to US$6,000 per ounce is reasonable by year-end,
with a combination of rising geopolitical tensions, rising United States debt
levels, central banks diversifying foreign asset reserves by purchasing gold
and stock market uncertainty driving prices upward.
Gold’s price rise has also finally spilled over
into the gold mining sector in particular and the mining sector in general.
In 2025, mining companies on the Toronto Stock
Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange turned in their best performance in a
decade, raising
$16 billion in equity capital, up 60 per
cent from the $10 billion raised in 2024. It also accounted for about 48 per
cent of the $33 billion in total raised by all listed companies in 2025. But
that’s still below the $22 billion the mining sector raised in 2009.
More
Gold bugs
converge for PDAC with new credibility | Financial Post
Technology
Update.
With events happening fast in the
development of solar power and graphene, among other things, I’ve added this
section Updates as they get reported.
How can
batteries respond to energy price volatility in Europe?
By JP Casey February 24,
2026
Constantly fluctuating power prices in
Europe present opportunities for the continent’s battery energy storage system
(BESS) developers, but business cases need to be flexible to keep up with
changes in the industry.
This was the sentiment expressed by
panellists speaking on day one of Solar Media’s Energy Storage Summit 2026,
held this week in London, who gave a number of examples of fluctuations in
European power prices as an example of the kind of opportunities for the BESS
sector to provide flexibility in the continent’s energy mix.
“Volatility exists where we have the
transition to renewables, or we have an amount of renewable penetration that’s
quite high,” said Dan Moore, head of BESS asset management at Root Power.
“Those markets are the most interesting ones—they’re certainly the most
volatile ones.”
“Germany is the market, in Europe, that
has the most sustained merchant opportunity, driven by the depth of its
intra-day market [and] the depth of its trading opportunities,” said Alexa
Strobel, head of strategy and analysis at Field Energy, starting a discussion
on the power price environment that spanned several individual European
countries.
Strobel went on to explain that high
solar generation—she said that Germany added 17GW of new solar capacity in
2025, compared to ”like 2GW of operational batteries” at present—drove spot
prices to lows of -€450/MWh in May last year, and this trend is unlikely to
stop as more renewable energy capacity is deployed across the continent.
----Building a BESS business case
Pino argued that deploying batteries in
a manner in which they can be easily added to or expanded will be vital, as the
rate of technological innovation in the BESS space continues to move quickly.
“We are building a 2-hour system, [and
are] already prepared when it comes to foundations and electrical works to make
an update to 4-hours quite easily,” he said. “You need to be quite careful on
this saturation point; it already happened in the UK, that within the life
cycle of a battery, the business case will change three, four, five or even ten
times! You need to be prepared for that.”
The alignment of renewable energy
generation capacity and battery capacity could happen sooner than expected in
some countries, too. While Stober argued that many markets will see saturation
happen “much slower” than in the UK, Koen Broess of Energy Storage NL (ESNL)
said the mere announcement of longer-duration projects in some countries means
their storage industries are entering a new phase of maturity.
“Saturation will happen, and probably
sooner than most will expect,” he said. “The first 1GW 4-hour duration projects
are being announced in Germany; if you build a project of this size, the
solution of ancillary services will happen, for sure. Just make your business
case not only dependent on ancillary services.”
Broess went on to suggest that
developers could build batteries of different sizes, in order to participate in
different parts of the market, and strengthen the business case of individual
projects.
“If you build out 1- or 2-hour systems,
you build them for ancillary systems,” he said. “If you build 4+ hour projects,
you build them for trading and day-ahead market [involvement].”
More upcoming energy storage summits.
How can batteries respond to energy price volatility in Europe? -
Energy-Storage.News
Next, the
world global debt clock. Nations debts to GDP compared.
World Debt Clocks
(usdebtclock.org)
Another
weekend and the start of a new trading month on Monday. The start of Comex March silver deliveries
too. Hopefully, an orderly, normal delivery process with most of the longs rolling
forward to the May futures contract. Hopefully no new US war in the Middle East.
Hopefully an end to the Washington-London War Party proxy war on Russa in
Ukraine. Have a great weekend everyone.
“I would say with the amount of debt the U.S. has, US$10,000 an
ounce, that’s where the gold price belongs.”
Harvey Organ, a retired pharmacist in Toronto, [who] has spent
more than two decades dutifully blogging and reporting on gold trading activity
on the Commodity Exchange Inc. (Comex),
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